Study guide
A Streetcar Named Desire A Level English Literature notes Edexcel/Pearson
detailed notes on themes and context for Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire for the poetry exam for A Level English Literature
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By: salomegliddon • 3 year ago
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A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE – A LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATURETHEMES – Could be subject of an essay
Death
Death is portrayed as a catastrophic, damaging theme throughout the play
Death of all of Blanche and Stella’s relaties
Death monologue
Death portrayed as ugly compared to funerals
Caused economic ruin for Blanche
Death of Blanche’s dreams
Destructon and loss of Belle Reie
Leads to hopelessness and then Blanche’s ‘madness’
Death of Allan
Portrayed as an escape for him
Damaging to Blanche’s belief in loie/iiew towards it
Is present throughout
From the deaths at Belle Reie, to the death of the south, to the
reference to cemeteries, Allan, Mitch's dead girlfriend and the Mexican woman selling fowers for the
dead
Desperation
Blanche is so desperate that when it's clear she won't get what she needs she giies up and is
portrayed as ‘mad’
Gets taken away by the doctor and matron
She isn’t actually mentally ill but her ‘madness’ is just a symptom of her giiing in to what
she’s supposed to do/be – extreme hopelessness and lack of care
Blanche in desperate need of fnancial assistance
A home
She goes to Stella and stays with her eien though she doesn’t like the area and
thinks its beneath her but she cant aford a hotel room/has been kicked out of hotels
A husband
She is desperate to fnd a man who can solie her problems so firts with eieryone
whether that’s mitch, a possible partner or the ‘young man’
She’s eien turned to prosttuton for the protecton of men
Social Class
Blanche
From an upper class background and feels superior (sense of enttlementt
Acts as if she is stll wealthy and aboie eieryone else – wealth is not what makes you
enttled
Snobbery about Elysian felds
Her clothes and her comments about colloquialisms
Stella
More progressiie and doesn’t really care as much about class (married for loie/lust rather
than money as Blanche wouldt
Comes from a more afuent background but has adopted a more modern lifestyle with
Stanley
Is happy liiing in Elysian Fields rather than Belle Reie (she hasn’t really been back
theret
Stanley recognises that she enjoyed him pulling down the white pillars of Belle Reie
Stanley/Steie/Eunice
Working class characters
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